evergreen-lodge

[evergreen-lodge]

Part 1:

Lorekind

The story begins as I think many stories do, with two people sitting on a bench waiting for something to happen. One was a man, maybe mid thirties, reading glasses perched on his nose, with a pen in hand doing the crossword in the newspaper. He wore a black suit, like a well dressed businessman, but was more relaxed than anyone ever seen working in an office. His dark hair was tidy, fixed in place with product, his equally dark eyes calm and focused as he tried to find a four letter word for ‘zenith’.

Next to the man on the bench was a large brown coat folded quite neatly, probably his, though he looked very comfortable in the freezing cold, so it could’ve been for the young woman shivering next to him. Long plumes of hot breath escaped her lips as she sat there waiting, hands clenched into fists in her coat pockets, her scarf and wooly hat doing their best to shield any exposed skin from the wind. She sniffled loudly, her nose a bright pink like a certain famous reindeer. Without looking up, the man pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to the girl, who took it and blew into it like a gross trumpet.

“Thank you,” she said, handling it by the one clean corner, giving it back to the man. He still didn’t look up, simply accepted the cloth and flicked it out to side. If anyone had been passing by in the frigid cold around them, they’d have been startled by the sudden pop!, as if someone had lit a single small firecracker out in the snow. The handkerchief was unwrinkled and clean again, and so the man stuffed it back into the pocket of his suit.

“Don’t mention it,” the man said, finally looking up from the paper. He’d given up on the crossword, and had decided to save it for the cab ride back to the Lodge. He checked his watch, and confirming the time, stood up and brushed himself off.

“Come on, it’s almost time,” he said as he swung the coat across his shoulders and adjusted his tie. “You know you can just make yourself warmer, right?” He looked at the young woman, who if you looked at her couldn’t have been more than twenty, and raised an eyebrow in question. “You’re just letting yourself be cold, huh?”

“Why are you wearing a coat if you don’t need it?” She asked, dripping sass. “It’s thirty four degrees out here, it wouldn’t make sense if I wasn’t cold.”

“Morri gave me this coat!” The man said defensively. “She said it completed this look I’ve made for myself, whatever that means. I like the color, anyway.”

The woman rolled her eyes and shuffled quickly across the street to the apartment building. The man strode along behind her, his longer legs catching up in just two strides.

“If you liked the coat so much why weren’t you wearing it?” she asked crossly, yanking open the door, the ice around the doorframe crunching as it swing open. Dull fluorescents lit the interior, revealing an elevator and staircase. The pair walked inside.

“Well if you must know, I was afraid I’d ruin it somehow,” the man said, for the first time a hint of color coming to his cheeks, though it wasn’t from the chill. The woman looked at him and grinned.

“You’re so smitten, it’s precious,” she laughed, finally allowing herself to be comfortably toasty with a snap of her fingers. Her puffy overcoat and layers of sweatpants disappeared, replaced with a suit similar to the man’s, though much more stylish. A few personal touches. The jacket tapered around her waist elegantly with purple trim. Her snow shoes flashed briefly before sorting themselves out into a pair of modest yet trendy heels. Her red hair billowed out for a moment before bunning itself on top of her head, all as her green eyes glowed with power.

“Well you would be too, with a woman like Morri,” the man said, defensively again, but sighing with a smile, not even blinking as his companion metamorphosed. He reached out and pushed the elevator Up button. The aluminum doors dinged! and retracted, allowing them to step inside. The woman hit the button for the fifth floor, which also happened to be the top floor of the building.

“Speaking of, how is she? Did she like the book I sent her?” asked the girl. The elevator creaked and the metal groaned, clearly in need of some tender loving care by whoever it was that fixed elevators as their life’s purpose.

“The one with the little fountain on the cover? Yeah, she loved it. We were in Italy last weekend, and she couldn’t put it down long enough to see anything.”

“Oh well, it’s not like Italy is going anywhere. Besides, it’s a food destination anyway, that’s always more important. Eat anywhere good?”

“Yeah, this nice little old lady from one of those rustic family style kitchens overheard us wanting to take a picnic, so she actually prepared a basket for us. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen, we didn’t even have to pay extra, she just told us to bring the basket and plates back.”

“That is sweet! Where did you have the picnic?”

“The leaning Tower of Pisa.”

“You ate on the lawn with all those tourists?”

“Of course not,” the man said. The elevator dinged again and the doors opened. “We ate on the roof. Better view.”

“Sounds romantic.”

Down the hall, the last door on the left, right next to the main window with the fire escape. Exactly as the briefing said. As they got closer the scent of incense filled the air, thick with rosemary and sage. The woman wafted it away from her nose.

“Pretty basic, right? Could be these guys don’t really have any real juice,” the woman mused. The man tapped her shoulder and pointed towards the walls and ceiling, both thick with infected veins of rot and mold leading toward the door, like poison spreading out from the heart of some great beastie.

“If anything, I think the briefing was a little optimistic,” the man said. He checked his watch again. “Hang back with me, it’s not time yet.”

“You know, punctuality isn’t always the best,” the woman said, hands on her hips. “We could just go in there right now and actually get home early for once.”

“The briefing said, and I quote, that all persons of importance would be in the apartment by 6:36 pm, and that would be when we should knock on the door for greatest chance of success.”

“I know, I know,” she whined, “I just wanted to get to this food truck on the corner of my building before they close. I’ve been trying for a week to get their crepes, they’re supposed to amazing.”

“Well once we’re done here, and supposing the paperwork doesn’t take too long, we’ll see what we can do,” he said.

“You sure you don’t wanna get promoted? She asked. “You’d make a great manager at the Lodge.”

“What, and miss all these great outings? Not for anything.”

The man checked his watch again. It was a simple thing, just a plain leather strap and of no particularly famous model. The time read 6:35 and 29 seconds. Somewhere muffled behind the door came the sounds of multiple people all speaking at once, but the sound was much darker and lower than a chorus line. It sounded more like chanting. The rot in the walls spread ever further outward, spurred on by whatever was happening inside apartment 558.

“Come on, let’s get into character.”

“Oh, can I do the knock? You always knock,” the girl said, following to stand in front of the door.

“As the senior agent on site, correct, I always knock,” the man said, knocking solidly, yet politely, on the door. Honestly speaking, solid yet polite might be the perfect way to describe him in general.

The chanting stopped abruptly. The woman could imagine the people in the apartment looking from each other to the door and asking themselves silently we’re all here aren’t we? The idea was just funny enough to make her force down a smile.

The man knocked again, slightly harder.

Another few moments passed, then came a metallic clunk and a rather large sounding deadbolt was pulled back. The door opened approximately four inches, with the flimsy chain still attached. A man’s face filled the gap, eyes wide, pupils heavily dilated. A splash of red stained down his mouth to his bald and doubled chin, which could’ve been blood if not for the distinct smell of cherry on his breath. Koolaid, the woman thought, fighting off another grin.

“What do you want?” The man in the door asked, words slightly slurred. It looked to the woman like he was wearing some fancy bathrobe, but the knot was coming undone, and she could see his lime green boxers, also stained with splashes of cherry red. He wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath.

“Good evening sir,” said the man beside her, “it’s come to our attention that you and your five compatriots inside are in the middle of a certain ‘Satanic’ ritual, and we’ve been tasked with…”

The door slammed shut, the bolt thunked back into place.

“… retrieving the infant you’ve decided to sacrifice. Why do they never let me finish? So rude.” The man brought his foot up and planted it firmly in the center of the door, not only snapping the bolt and the chain, but the hinges as well. The wood splintered as it fell inside the apartment, and the two walked through the now empty doorway. All the furniture had been overturned and pushed up against the walls. The people inside, four men and two woman, all wearing pajamas in various stages of unkempt. They all stood around a poorly painted pentagram on the carpet, in the center of which lay a baby swaddled in a cute blue blankie. The baby cooed, its gray pointed ears wiggling as it giggled up at them, yellow eyes twinkling. The man who’d answered the door was holding a kitchen knife in his right hand, standing above the child.

“Right, as I was saying,” said the suited man, slipping off his coat and handing it to the woman, “you six are in violation of several dozen different laws, both magical and mundane. Now we know none of you meant to do this, but I’m still going to have to ask that you put your hands up and back away from the child.”

“You’re demons too, aren’t you?!” The knife wielding one accused, dribbling on himself. He swayed on his feet, with a splinter of door caught inside his robe. He didn’t look good. In fact, every current occupant of room 558 seemed to be in some state of sickness. One of the women seemed to have vomited on herself recently, while two of the men had definitely soiled themselves.

“You’re here to see your antichrist baby, huh?! Huh?!” The man spat at them, waving the knife at them now.

“God, why is it always ‘Satan this’ or ‘Satan that’ with these guys?” the young woman asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Now you know it’s not their fault,” the tidy looking man said, unbuttoning his suit jacket. “You know what this kind of power does to the untrained. They’re basically drunk on a delusion.”

“I know, I just wish someone would have new material is all,” the woman sighed. She clapped her hands as two of the men in the back charged towards her, but as they barreled onwards their feet sank up to their knees in the punch stained carpet. They fell over each other, their inertia taking them face first into the floor which was now liquifying around them like quicksand, trapping them in place. They’d have screamed in fear or outrage, but the woman clicked her tongue and paralyzed their vocal cords.

The man wielding the knife jumped for the baby, no doubt planning to impale the little creature to the floor, but the tidy man in the black suit was already blocking his way, moving like a blur. He grabbed the disheveled man and flipped him on his back, knocking the knife away under a ruined couch. The remaining man, the only one wearing any bottoms, darted to the side and appeared to be trying to escape. He even made it a few feet past the grappling pair on the floor before the tidy man swept his legs out from under him and sent him crashing into the wall with a sick crunch.

Meanwhile the two crazed women were throwing things, a lamp, broken dishes, and a single uncomfortably wet book, all of which hung suspended in the air before the young woman in the suit. Her eyes flashed a brilliant green, and the various objects arced back through the air, striking the lunatic would-be occultists. They went down in a pile on top of each other, knocked unconscious.

“Hey, remember they’re the victims too, okay?” The tidy man said, twisting the fat man’s arm behind his back.

“I know, but it’s hard to hold back when they’re just attacking like this, you know my powers act on reflex,” the young woman said, waving her hand. One of the trashed couches righted itself and the two downed women floated slowly on top of it, like paper dolls being set down by a great invisible hand. “Better?” she asked.

“Passing marks, but just barely,” the tidy man said, as he gently put the dirty man to sleep as gently as he could, with a swift chop to the back of the head. The man gave out a single hoarse cry before going out like a light. “Make sure that one didn’t break his neck going into the wall, okay? I’m gonna Minnie this one, I think he’s the source.”

The tidy man reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small wooden mouse with a tiny pink stone set into its forehead. He dropped it in the mouth of the unconscious man, where it quickly shook itself out and flicked its tail, before scurrying down his throat. From the outside, there was a faint pink glow traveling down the man neck into his chest, then he relaxed. The bags under his eyes faded, and his breathing softened. Suddenly the room was much easier to be in, as if existing itself wasn’t such a damnable chore. The rot in the walls faded away, and the odor of decay vanished almost entirely. All that remained was the distinct aroma of cherry koolaid wafting up from an overturned punch bowl in the corner.

“Glad that’s sorted out,” the girl said, dusting her hands off on her pants. She’d already taken the initiative and rectified the furniture, with the addled occupants of 558 gently sleeping on the now clean cushions. With the Minnie doing its work sealing the large man’s latent magical ability, whatever unconscious spell-work he’d crafted was cut off at the root. “What about the kid?”

The swaddled infant still sat in the center of the now fading pentagram, the paint steaming away to nothing. However, the child still appeared to be of monstrous origin, gray skin and pointed ears, little dull claws balled up in their little ravioli fists. The baby looked up at them with bright yellow eyes and giggled again.

“Come’er little guy,” the man said, bending down and scooping up the infant changeling. “Let’s get you back to mama, okay? You wanna get snacks on the way? Yeah? You’re so cute,” the man cooed and clucked over the baby creature like a mother hen, to which the young woman smiled.

“My god, be cuter,” she laughed.

And like that, the now trio strode out the door and left apartment 558 behind them, hardly giving it a second thought. They wouldn’t have to think about it again until they were writing up the report back at the Lodge. Lucky them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the second time that day, the man and woman stood in front of a door and knocked. The only difference now was the infant monster still in the man’s arms, who was busying teething on his tie.

The door opened and a very tired looking woman stood there, hands over her mouth. Her dark brown har was frazzled and she had very obvious bags under her eyes.

“Mr. Bo, Ms. Fields, I can’t thank you enough for getting Rufus,” she said, taking the baby from the man.

“Mama!” Baby Rufus squealed excitedly, nuzzling his mom.

“It’s no problem ma’am,” Bo said, fixing his tie, “but may I make a recommendation? Leaving your child in the care of religious zealots with untapped magical potential isn’t really the best idea.”

“I know, I know, but I thought leaving him with someone with such an abundant amount of power would be good for him, make him grow all big and strong.”

“We understand that Changelings can have difficulties raising their own kids,” said Amy, Ms. Fields, “and the Evergreen Lodge has taken that into account as well. We’ve recently began a daycare program where species like yours can drop off your children and they’ll be looked after by professionals, even offer at-home support.”

“Oh my god, that’d be such a help,” said Mom, her skin darkening to gray and her ears tapering to points. Clearly she was relaxing. “And these professionals, they know how to treat hyperactive flyers? Because his wings are coming in, and I don’t know what to do!”

“Ma’am, you have my word,” Bo assured her, “I’ve personally overseen the program doctrine, you have nothing to worry about. Here’s my card, I will show you around myself if you choose to come use the facility.”

“Well if the Mr. Bo says so, then it must be good,” she said. “I’ve got to get Rufus in a bath, but I’ll call tomorrow to set up an appointment.”

“The Lodge thanks you for your trust in us,” Bo said, bowing ever so slightly. The mom closed the door, and the two Lodge agents started heading back out. Once outside, and back in the cold, Amy didn’t bother with the chilled disguise, choosing rather to stay in her suit and willing herself to a toasty comfortable temperature.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say she’s an irresponsible mother, leaving her kid in there,” she said, stretching her arms above her head so her elbow popped.

“Changelings are high potential beings, but it’s a double edged sword. ADHD, cognitive dissonance, they want to be good parents but they literally don’t know how to be,” Bo checked his watch, “it’s not their fault. And she was right, that guy was full of mojo, little tyke would’ve been full for months getting that kind of protein every day.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m reserving judgment for after she comes in for the daycare service. I can’t believe you set that up in just the walk over here.”

“Well I’d pitched a similar idea to Hera before, I just pushed for it a little harder this time. And you know, that’s the job,” Bo shrugged in that nice long coat of his, “she needed help, so we helped her.”

“Nah, see, I’ve been working with you for three months, nobody on Earth puts this much heart into their job. You’re like, the best guy ever.”

“I’m really not.”

Bo held his hand out over the curb and whistled, flagging down a cab. The driver seemed concerned at their lack of layers, but they assured him it was perfectly fine.

“Nearest train station, please,” Bo requested, before taking the crossword back out of his coat pocket.

“I don’t suppose either of you knows a four letter word for ‘zenith’, huh?” He asked hopefully.

“Apex,” replied both Amy and the driver in unison. Amy turned her head towards him and smirked.

“Giving up?” she asked.

“Not even close.”

“Good. Now about those crepes…”

[evergreen-lodge]

At some point I’m sure, whether from an old English class or perhaps the History channel, somewhere along the timeline of your life you’ve heard some of the Old Stories. Heroes like Perseus slaying the Gorgon, or Cú Chulainn the Irish giant, indestructible during his riastradh. I’m absolutely positive you must’ve heard of us ‘monsters’, if nothing else. Creatures like dragons, laying waste to country sides, stealing gold and cattle, or the ever notorious werewolves or chupacabras, both banes of civilization in their own rights. Perhaps an old enigmatic Sphinx, now content to tell stories, hmm? Nobody enjoys riddles anymore anyway.

Now what if I told you the stories were true? Yes yes, ridiculous I know, but believe in something more for just a moment. Creatures of great and terrible might, men and women capable of bending the elements to their needs, gods themselves, roaming the earth seeking worshippers to nourish themselves with faith. Of course, not all of the tall tales were true, at least not yet, but we’ll get to that later. For now, simply believe, and open your eyes to see the truth.

The world is still full of magic.

That being said, it’s not the exact same as the stories would lead you to believe. Monsters hardly ever eat anyone anymore, and magic has been regulated to be much more… user friendly. Safer. No more of that ‘flooding the earth’ or ‘raining fire from the sky’ nonsense. Much more manageable. See, a few thousand years back, the magical world figured something out: even if we did die, we’d come back eventually. Extinct leviathans that hadn’t been seen in centuries once again swam the seas, vanquished spirits haunted their same old halls, even the heroes of old were born anew in time. Live. Die. Repeat. After a while, we realized why:

It was the stories, our stories, still being told by you humans. It was the anchor of our existence, tethered so deep into the collective unconscious of humanity that it kept us alive, eons after anything flesh should have withered away. And so we became the Lorekind, beings burning so bright and full of life, empowered by the ghost stories told by humans huddled around the fire. We needed the world of man, and the world still needed something to believe in, even if only subconsciously. And so a new system was put into effect, with safeguards on all sides, as fair as anyone could get.

The mythological world and the world of men are now overseen by a force known only as the Evergreen Lodge, a super pact of Gods, Monsters, Immortals, and Men, bound by law and magic to keep the worlds alive and stable. No side with any advantage over the other, but protected from man and monster alike by man and monster alike. Their agents safeguard the world from dangers, both supernatural and manmade. Quite honestly, this is my new favorite era of heroes. I myself, while not an agent, am their Chief Librarian, and a founding member of the Lodge. You may call me Phix.

I tell their stories.

Be sure to repeat them.